A Cold and Lonely Place: A Novel

by Sara J. Henry

  The break-in, at least, was solved. I could weave it into my article without saying who did it, but I’d more likely end up leaving it out. You’re always making decisions about what fits in articles and what doesn’t.

  Win moved back to the cabin after just one night at the house; she was one tough woman.

  I sought out several of the guys on the list Armand had given me, and after I got two of them to agree that Tobin’s sister deserved to know what had happened with her brother on the last day of his life, they talked. Separately they told essentially the same story: sharp words, a shove, a stumble, Tobin banging his head against the wall. Neither of them wanted to tell me the name of the person who had done the shoving, because both insisted it had been over on the spot, that the other fellow left the bar hours after Tobin, and by then had been so drunk he could barely stand upright.

  Now what? If there had been an iota of a possibility that this fellow had followed Tobin, I’d have to tell the police. But what if the shove, the bump on the head, had affected Tobin, had something to do with his late-night ramble across the lake and through the ice? Would the person who had happened to shove him in a minor scuffle over a pool table need to have that hanging over him forever? What good would that serve? Maybe this needed to be forgotten, to be filed away, another Adirondack secret.

  It was too much for me at the moment. For now, I just wrote. I started to weave what I had into an article, and I worked well past noon. By then I was beyond hungry, and realized my food supplies were pretty much down to peanut butter and jelly. I ate an apple past its prime and a sandwich on bread that would have been considered stale a week ago, then headed up to Price Chopper. I did remember that Marilyn worked there, but I don’t know that I expected to see her. But there she was, gathering carts to push through the slushy parking lot into the store, as if I’d planned it.

  “Can I talk to you for a sec?” I asked.

  She gave me a dour look but didn’t say no.

  “Did you expect what happened, when you sent that article around?”

  I think my question surprised her. She almost looked chagrined. “No,” she said. “I didn’t know it would blow up like that. I was just mad, mad at Jessamyn, sort of mad at Tobin, for dying.” She tugged her hat down around her ears. “Look, I knew I never would have a chance with Tobin. But I liked him. And I didn’t like Jessamyn.”

  I hadn’t expected this much frankness. So I pushed on. “Someone helped you send around that article, didn’t they?”

  She looked down. “Yes,” she said. “A guy I knew.”

  I waited. She reached for another cart and shoved it into the two she had already gathered. “It was that guy, Dirk—the one who wrote the article for the paper.”

  The kid reporter. The one whose name I barely remembered. The one who’d started all this.

  “You were friends with him?” I asked.

  “I knew him from around—he knew I was pissed off about Jessamyn. So he gave me the thing, the photo of the article, and showed me how to put it in e-mails to send around.”

  So the kid had solicited this woman to send his scurrilous article around. I’d bet he barely knew her, but figured she was malleable enough to talk into it.

  “But you don’t actually know anything about how Tobin died?”

  She shook her head. “No. I just heard a rumor that someone was mad at him for putting the moves on their girlfriend.”

  “Jessamyn?” I asked.

  “No, not Jessamyn—someone else. I don’t know who. And I don’t even know if it was true. You know how people are.”

  Yes, I did. She couldn’t remember where or from whom she might or might not have heard the rumor.

  My brain worked this over as I headed into the store. It was possible there was no rumor, that Marilyn just wanted to give me a sop, a bit of information even if it was false. I did my shopping, put my canvas bags in the car, then started to swing into my seat.

  This time when I saw the truck that looked like Tobin’s, I wasn’t exhausted from having worked all morning at the paper. This time, I wasn’t kneeling beside my car filling a tire with air. This time, I closed my car door, turned the key in the ignition, and pulled out and followed.

  To me, the back of a pickup pretty much looks like the back of a pickup, aside from color. But something made me think this truck was Tobin’s—maybe the pattern of the scratches in the paint had settled in my memory, or part of the license plate numbers. And I couldn’t keep letting this imagined—or not imagined—truck taunt me.

  It turned down Route 73. All I could see inside it was the silhouette of a man driving. The truck passed the road to Tobin’s cabin, and kept going, toward Keene Valley. I checked my gas gauge: three-quarters of a tank. I seldom let it get below half full in the winter, because you never knew when you might get stuck somewhere.

  I couldn’t read all of the plate through the snow and slush on it, but I could make out all but two digits, and I jotted it down on a scrap of paper. I called Win. No answer. I called the house. It rang a long time, and Brent answered.

  “Is Jessamyn there, by any chance?” I asked.

  “No, she went up to work.”

  I was fast approaching an area where my cell service would likely go out. “Brent, is there any chance … you wouldn’t happen to remember what kind of truck Tobin had, would you?”

  “Sure, it was a 2005 Dodge Ram,” he said, without hesitation.

  “Why?”

  “Because, well, I’m following a truck that looks a lot like it.”

  Silence. “Does the plate start with FGY?” he asked.

  I glanced at my slip of paper, and something inside me went cold. “Yes. Yes, it does.” I didn’t ask why he remembered Tobin’s license plate number. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  “Where are you?” Brent asked.

  I told him: Highway 73, nearly to Keene.

  “I’ll call the police for you, Troy.”

  “Call the state police,” I said, and told him who to ask for. “And if you can’t get him, call the Saranac Lake police, I guess.” I hung up and kept driving.

  The state police in Ray Brook were miles away, but maybe there was a trooper out and about close to me. We were fast approaching the turnoff to I-87. To my relief, the truck pulled into Stewart’s in Keene. I watched the driver get out and go inside—a good-sized guy, in what looked like workmen’s clothes. I called Brent again.

  “Did you get through?” I asked.

  He had. He’d told the investigator I was following Tobin’s truck down Highway 73 and had left my cell phone number. I told him we were at Stewart’s, and he said he’d relay the information.

  I sat there, shivering, until I saw the man come out of the store, a cup of coffee in his hand. I looked around—no police in sight. My phone wouldn’t work much past here, and the signal wasn’t great now. Before I could think it through, I got out of my car and moved toward the truck, and spoke just as the man was reaching for the door.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  He turned and looked at me. He was unshaven, with a not-unfriendly face.

  “That looks like Tobin Winslow’s truck,” I said. My teeth were almost chattering, not just from the cold.

  He blinked. “Yeah, I bought it from him.”

  I cleared my throat, keeping my distance. “Er, but it’s still titled in his name.”

  He didn’t ask how I knew this. He took a sip of his coffee, eyeing me, maybe wondering if I was a disgruntled spouse tracking down assets. “Yeah, I haven’t gotten around to transferring it. I was waiting to save up a little more, to pay the registration and tax and stuff. Tobin said he didn’t mind and he’d leave the insurance on it till March if I needed. Why, is he complaining?”

  I looked at him. He was frowning, in a slightly annoyed way. “You haven’t been around much lately, have you?” I asked him.

  Now he was confused. “No, I’ve been on a job in Rouses Point, up near the border, why?”

&
nbsp; “Tobin’s dead,” I said.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have told him, or not so bluntly. He seemed shocked. He leaned back against the side of the truck. “Dead?” he repeated.

  I nodded. “His body was just found a few weeks ago. The police have been wondering where his truck was.”

  He didn’t move quickly, which is maybe why what he did next didn’t alarm me. He set his coffee down on the hood, opened his passenger door and the glove box, pulled out a piece of paper, and held it out to me. I looked at it. It was a title, signed over, dated the day Tobin was last seen. A thin chill ran down my spine.

  “You paid Tobin in cash, didn’t you?” I asked.

  He nodded. So there had been a wad of cash, and this was where Tobin had gotten it. He’d sold his truck. The question was why, and where the money had gone.

  I stayed with him until the state police arrived. They could sort it out. I was pretty sure it would turn out to be exactly what this guy had told me. And then they could figure out if it would be legal to transfer a title signed before the owner died, or not.

  I called Win and told her, and stopped at her cabin on my way back. She looked as if she’d been crying. Maybe she’d been pinning her hopes on this truck, that finding it would supply some answers about Tobin’s death. We’d found Tobin’s safe deposit box, solved the mystery of the break-in, found out about their brother’s death. But we seemed no closer to finding out why Tobin had died or how it had happened.

  “At least we know Tobin didn’t drive his truck onto the lake, that it’s not under the ice,” I said.

  She smiled wanly. “Yes, that’s some consolation. It’s just frustrating—everything we find out seems to raise more questions. Like, why on earth would Tobin have sold his truck?”

  “Maybe he was about to buy something else. Or he wanted money for the lawyer? The one he was going to see in Albany.”

  “Maybe. There wasn’t much in his savings account, and his next trust fund payment wasn’t due for another month or so. But how would he have gotten to Albany without his truck?”

  “He could have been going to take the train.”

  “So he sells his truck to pay the lawyer to make a new will? Or try to break the trust or borrow against it? Why couldn’t he just wait until his next check?”

  We thought on it a while, but we couldn’t work it out. Trying to figure out what dead people intended could drive you mad, especially when many people didn’t really know what they wanted even when they were alive.

  I told her goodbye and headed home. I was tired. Body tired, bone tired, soul tired. I called Philippe. He wasn’t in. I tried his cell phone, and it went to voice mail. I couldn’t call Jameson, not when I was this low. Not now. I felt hollow and alone. This was wearing me down.

  I needed for it all to be over.

  CHAPTER 49

  The next morning my phone rang early, just after I had taken Tiger out.

  It was Win. “My mother called this morning. She’s left my father—or, more accurately, he left. He moved into an apartment in the city. And she wants to see me.”

  “Okay,” I said, unsure if this was good or bad.

  “And she wants to meet David.”

  Not what I expected.

  “She read the last article?” I asked.

  “Yes, she found it online. And I mentioned David when I met with them, just not by name.”

  I told her to come over. When she arrived we talked it out over omelets and toast and jam, whether she was comfortable meeting with her mother and why her mother might want to see David.

  Win rolled her eyes in indecision. “I want to hear what she has to say. But to be honest, I’m not completely sure I’m up for it. And I have no idea why she wants to see David—she didn’t say, and I don’t want to ask.”

  “Did she know about David … before, I mean?”

  Win shook her head. “Looking back, I think whatever she knew, whatever she admitted to, she thought was a phase Trey would grow out of, that Trey would settle down and marry and have kids like he was expected to. And maybe he would have. Maybe he wouldn’t have been strong enough to stand up to them. Maybe he knew that Tobin was the one who could and would. But Trey never imagined Tobin would be blamed for his death. Neither of them could have imagined that.”

  She thought for a moment. “I met David a few times, just a college friend of Trey’s, I thought. I liked him. I don’t think I ever thought it was more than that, just one of Trey’s friends who seemed really nice.”

  She finally decided she should go, and that David should be asked. And that it would be better if I relayed the message to him. I debated whether to e-mail or call—not something you’d find the answer to from Amy Vanderbilt. Finally I called, and had the luck to reach him quickly. He listened to me, and then I put Win on the phone.

  A half hour later, Win and I were in her car, heading to Greenwich. I wasn’t sure at what point it had become apparent this wasn’t something she wanted to do alone. Win was nervous about seeing her mother, and about seeing David, and she wasn’t the type of woman who got nervous. My work could wait a day. I wasn’t looking forward to writing a story with no resolution, and I wasn’t at all sure what I was going to do about the whole shoving incident. Which I hadn’t told anyone about.

  We met David at a McDonald’s not far from his office. The good thing about McDonald’s is that there’s one everywhere, and those big golden arches are easy to find. I introduced him to Win in the parking lot, and she gave him a hug. It wasn’t the best place for meeting, but we hadn’t had much time to plan this.

  I got into his Saab; we’d follow Win to her mother’s house. It seemed polite to keep David company, and Win had told me she could use the alone time.

  David and I drove in silence at first, a not uncomfortable one.

  “Do you know Jessica’s—Win’s mother?” he asked.

  “No, not at all. I spoke to her once, very briefly. I left them messages, of course, when I was writing those first two articles, but they never got back to me.”

  He smiled a little. I looked at him questioningly.

  “It’s not really anything,” he said, “I was just thinking—Tobin’s the only one of the three who kept his name. People close to Trey called him Martin, and Jessica goes by Win now.”

  But Tobin’s the one who left, I thought, so maybe he didn’t need to change his name. And Tobin was a cool name. Jessamyn also had clung to her unique first name, which had let her father find her. Another thing she and Tobin had in common.

  David turned to look at me. “That was brilliant how you did that second article, how you set it up, how you put it together.”

  I felt my face get warm. “Ah, yeah, well, it wasn’t an easy article to write—and it was tricky doing it from bits and pieces.”

  “You did it well,” he said. “You made it work. It’s a powerful piece.”

  We drove several more miles before he spoke again. “Do the Winslows expect legal ramifications?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “If the police send someone to talk to Mr. Winslow, I think he’ll just say he passed out after the boys went overboard and doesn’t remember going home, didn’t remember being in the boat until just now—that it all just came back to him. Or that he still doesn’t remember, but that the things that have come up have convinced him. Something like that.”

  He glanced at me. “Sure you haven’t met him?”

  “No, why?”

  “You’ve got him pegged. Or did Tobin or Win talk about him?”

  I shook my head. “No, Tobin never talked about family. Win did, a little. But sometimes you can tell what someone is like by the space they leave.”

  He looked at me.

  I tried to explain. “Not a space so much as how their presence affected people. How he affected Win and Tobin, and how it affected them when they left home.” I shook my head. “I’m not making sense.”

  “No, no, you are. I get it.”

  “And the nanny,�
�� I said. “The nanny sort of told me stuff.” Or didn’t tell me, but it amounted to the same thing.

  We were in a fancy neighborhood now, the homes stately and on large lots, some with driveways so long the houses were barely visible. David slid the Saab neatly around a corner. “You don’t have any idea why Mrs. Winslow wants to see Win or me?”

  “No,” I said. “And I don’t think Win does either. It was a surprise to her.”

  “So her mother asked to see you, too?”

  “Me? No, I’m here for moral support. I may end up just waiting in the car.”

  But I didn’t.

  The house made Philippe’s home in Ottawa look like a summer cottage. It was enormous, elegant without quite being ostentatious, as if a designer had been instructed to come as close as possible to the edge without going over it. The furniture and décor were exquisite. The woman who let us in was wearing a neat black dress that wasn’t a uniform, but left no doubt she was a servant. We were led into a pristine room, sunnier and deliberately more casual than a living room. There a woman was awaiting us, seated in a tall, slimly stuffed chair.

  Win, beside me, seemed composed, but I could feel anxiety radiating from her. David was calmer, but this wasn’t his family, and he’d known these secrets for a long time. And he could walk out and leave this all behind. Part of Win was still here, might always be here, in the rooms she’d grown up in with her brothers.

  The woman was slight: medium height, slim. Not a gray hair in evidence, hair immaculately coiffed. Her clothing was simple, but the simple that meant impressive price tags, not simple like “came from Target.” She nodded at the woman who’d showed us in, which presumably meant Leave us now or We are ready for tea. Apparently very rich people communicated with their underlings through nods.

  We sat down, neatly, primly, on the edges of our seats. Win introduced us, first me and then David, and Mrs. Winslow nodded at us in turn. She asked politely about our drive and asked David where he lived and worked. Then the tea arrived. It was good tea, with an enticing aroma, served in a lovely pot, with little cookies and tiny crustless sandwich thingies. We hadn’t had lunch, and I wondered how many of these little sandwich thingies I could eat without seeming rude.